Just the Redhead
by chakramrain
Summary: Cinders burn as embers in Effy's soul. She takes the stakeout to the point of no return when she loses her grip on sanity and sends a rock to Katie Fitch's face. Then she has arms of never-surer steel around the broken girl. All begins its unravelling, as the rotating planet comes to see the difficulty of pretending to be after a boy when all you want is the redhead at his side.


"The point is," she said, "he's mine and you're a desperate whore."

And I wouldn't have denied it, for there was something so potent about her aura that I wouldn't have doubted her had she said that the world rested upon the crown of her head, streaked black in the red. Instead of taking a plane I raised a brow, lifted an end of my mouth and shrugged. I turned away then.

I didn't throw a ball of fire towards the guy even though more often than not I would have my lips against his chest as opposed to hers. In fact, I never mentioned needing anything more than his tan cheek to mine. The cover of smoke was thick, just as it was suffocating.

I watched her move to his side, want him badly to be away from me and I wanted the same. I wanted him away from me and some masochistic side of me pleaded for him to take her arm and for them to walk into the sunset with a horse, dress and sparkling castle somewhere not too far away. And then again I desperately wanted to take her hips in my hands to show her how his fumbling, unsure hands couldn't touch her.

And yet I could not. Shockingly every once in a while my defence slid from my body and wavered, fragmented in silences as I took looks at her brandishing him upon her waist as if she were the happiest woman in the world. I should have been elated. I should have never needed another fix of anything from then onwards.

However, it is Katie Fitch we speak of. I would never be satisfied had I not engulfed her, breathed her in and wiped every inch of powder and gloss away with my bare thumbs. Her smile, so largely superficial but so largely revealing of a more innocent and naïve time, was brightly pleasing just as it was a thorn in my side I could not reach to remove.

And he looked apologetically at me. I so wanted to apologise to the man instead because as much as I couldn't care less, morals hadn't died in my subconscious sanity as of yet. But Katie twirled about beautifully in his arms and I watched her do so, forcing my gaze to lie within the boundaries of the Neanderthal that was Freddie McClair.

As my pupils dilated and my lips shook like leaves of autumn before they were cast aside, Naomi found truth, but redirected it to the unofficial target. And so from then on I was declared to be in love with a male who was said to be dark-haired and supposedly brooding.

My fingers crushed themselves about that solid and felt the grainy sediments come away under the tips. In the last bit of my sane mind I socked my wrist towards her face and she came hurtling elsewhere, into rustling undergrowth and moisture in the lurking air. I wanted to touch her, hold her and carry her away.

Jolted, I was unable to perform any actions according to my then lucid head. That was then and this is now. All that is done and now I deal with what men call the aftermath. I call it time passing as it does and has never stopped doing.

Now I sit with her in bed and she's turned away from me as I roll my eyes very slightly, jump right in and place an arm over her stomach. She almost lurches forward, but sinks back into me with an arching spine. I catch her as I should have done ages ago.

"Will you fuck off?"

"You do that," I say in typical response, but I'm smiling.

She turns and is close to me, bruised and torn forehead covered by a fringe of cherry. I don't brush more hair into her face to allay the guilt culminating and bubbling in my belly. I take the beauty of her face over that and as the stake is plunged past my vital organs I almost weep at her scowl.

"Freddie's _mine._"

"Still after perfection?"

She takes her eyes to mine and puts her fingers to the sides of my face, pulling my face back into the slight smile I always manage in amusement. Slightly bewildered and caught off guard, I shrink and shrivel backwards, hoping to find a shell behind.

I'm raw, though.

And as I appraise her face and frightened eyes that have calmed after the storm, I realise that she is too. At the swivelling point in her understanding of the place around her, as the bulk of the aimless people wanting aim in life say, I am here. So for once I _believe_ in the stupidity of souls and her eyes dig further into my chest, burrowing so she is left there to lie, vulnerable.

My heart clenches about her in a vice and this tightness is an ache because I haven't words to describe anything and now she is utterly confused.

"You're enigmatic."

I almost let out a chortle of some sort.

"You are, though."

"I know."

"Why the snort?" she says, almost as if offended by my actions.

"Using big words now, are we, Katie Fitch?"

"Tosser."

"Are you gay, Katie?" I place my forehead to hers and she does not immediately flinch, which I take to be a step in my right direction.

But when she does flinch, she pairs the action with two palms to my chest, dragging me away from her. I catch her wrists anyway and put them to my neck as I move even closer. Hurt and tired, she can't do more than squirm towards the wall. That she does and I put my fingertips to the small of her back, taking her in.

"Effy," she whispers.

"Hello, Katie," I say in a gentle voice that isn't patronising, which is uncharacteristic of my usual intonations; I feel her tremble in my arms and not so from the physical pain.

"Yes."

"Yes?"

"Yes," Katie doesn't look to me, forehead now at my chin, and "I'm still after perfection."

I feel my eyes darken. At this she has caught my eyes shifting about and she flinches once more, but I catch her again, shaking my head quickly as if in a promise to never frighten her again, whether it's with unnecessary proximities, signs of anger or a rock between both of us.

"It's not with Freddie," I play a disgustingly pathetic card, but am surprised at the response.

"I know."

"And you're not gay either?"

Katie gives up on turning from me, breaking free or denying the closeness. Instead she ignores my questions and statements though they are the most raw, bare and deliciously painful of mine ever. Cook would kill to see me at this and Naomi would slice the liver from her body without anaesthetic. Emily would do nothing, which seems relieving. She always is observant and takes me in her stride, somehow allowing me the permission to hover about her sister.

"Why are you asking, Effy?"

"I just wanted to know."

"You want a lot of things. You wanted Freddie when I did-"

"No," I growl immediately, the feral sounds circling from the depths of my pounding chest.

"You wanted everything that held me together."

"Yes," I finally put into admission, finally understanding myself, my selfishness, my goals and my ultimate reasoning; my reasoning was still within normal sanity, which I found to be disconcerting at the very least.

"You did."

"Only because I was sure I could replace those."

Katie's gasp is softer than I pictured hearing in my mind. At least it wasn't a slap, which I'd originally braced myself for. Her gasp isn't of shock at the content, I realise. It's shock at my lips moving to admit it. And then she gasps once more in shock at herself knowing all this while.

"Me."

"You."

"You wanted _me._"

"Who doesn't?" I almost spit out my answer because sometimes I wish Katie were the smarter twin who didn't raise hell over having to answer a multiplication question; however, I've never been one to actually watch old farts draw lines in chalk on a board.

"The fucking _world_, Eff, I'm not the greatest person to be around," she quickly retorts, reaching back within her soft and comfy zone of being.

I laugh, somehow sarcastically, and don't offend her, "I expected a more violent reaction."

She squeezes her eyes shut as if impatiently awaiting something, "I did too."

"You expected. You knew."

"No," she calls, "I didn't."

"Well, you're supposed to be the anti-gay patrol. Where are the guns? Where are you keeping the grenades? Is there a ban on rainbows?"

"You piece of-"

She cuts herself short, "you're gay."

She says this as if it's a felony.

"I prefer to say 'open to all fucks', but sure."

What I meant as a joke she took as mockery.

"I'm not going to be a fuck."

"You're not," I am quick to promise.

"Don't say things you won't keep to. I've had enough of that."

I wait, mess of hair thrown aside on her pillow as I take the covers over her legs. I watch the sheets of rain whack the windows and tuck her closer to me.

"It depends, though;" I say, "do you want me to keep to the things I'll say? I'm dangerous. You know that well."

Katie's lost her defence mechanism somewhere. It should be under the bed. I'll just kick it further into the darkness while it's at it. There isn't a dramatic upheaval of stomach contents or a disastrous, catastrophic earthquake at my not-s0-direct confessions.

"I need someone. I won't say I don't now."

"Great," I mutter, "because I never needed anyone until you shoved your face into mine."

"Lay down rules."

"No, Katie, your entire life has been about rules. You have to be straight. You have to have a guy with biceps. You have to have people surrounding you twenty-four hours in a day and you absolutely need distractions from reality. Honestly, your life hasn't been that successful with rules. Stop putting up boundaries. When are you letting yourself free?"

"Emily's the one with the rules," she says quickly, "everyone says that. I'm the wild one."

"Seems that way, doesn't it?"

She huffs a bit and I put my chin at her cheekbone.

"You won't be gay. You won't be bisexual. You won't be stupid or an outcast, you little fucker. You'll just be mine."

She takes another deep breath.

"Don't voice any shit against it either. Mine."

And I take her lips to mine, even though I am weirdly careful with the bruises decorating her pale face. The kiss is not passionate or strong. I don't taste alcohol and there aren't the faint remains of drugs staining her inner cheeks. Instead I can unravel in the taste of her, even as I am unravelling and becoming the filth that humanity is now.

I've despised human feelings so much. And here I am victim and slave to them. Though I've criticised them before now I cannot. Now I can only take pity on myself for my forlorn humanity. And yet I regret nothing.

Katie Fitch kisses me back.

This is all there is, then. All there is.

"I _knew it!_"

Then again, there's Naomi Campbell, the terrible sister's girlfriend. And then we just have to answer some shitty questions.


End file.
